A Collection of Lockdown Lyrics
During the Lockdown of 2020, I spent three months alone. Sat on the largest window ledge in my front room, I would stare at the peculiarly decorated building opposite. It was reminiscent of some sort of Egyptian-themed, Las Vegas casino.
In it’s current context, sandwiched between the Missippi chicken shop (owned by a very kind man, who was always happy to see me) and Essex Road station (undeniably the creepiest station I’ve ever had the displeasure to enter) it’s exterior felt almost tacky in it’s vibrancy. I would later find out that this place was called Gracepoint, a 1930s building, decorated in Egyptian-styled Art Deco, which gave me a newfound respect for the sight.
Framed by several, large, white columns, which were laced with garish geometric patterns, were sizeable windows which I could see straight into. In the months prior to the Lockdown I had seen the strangest things occur there, including what I could swear was an exorcism. Perhaps it was a spiritually healing building, because during my isolation I found myself writing more poetry, and songs then I had ever written before. Songs that have never, and may never be more than short videos of strange melodies, and rushed words in a Google photo’s album titled: ‘Songs’.
So, I wanted to compile some of my favourite lyrics, to reflect, and perhaps gain insight, into my thoughts/feelings during that period.
“Etch it in your skull, like a vinyl
Remember my vibrations as I shouted loud,
send my soundwaves to your mouth
Wide to amplify the sound”
“I was running like the colours,
I was bleeding through the pages
I was staining, every mark I made was
Permanent and damaging all the layers”
“My father taught me how to laugh off a fall
Blame it on the concrete floor
Never on the fact that I was running faster than I knew how to
Oh, so I never learned
I wish I could show you where it hurts
Maybe I should learn to walk first.”
“The problem is, you gave me attention
and I mistook attention for affection
The difference is unbeknownst to me, so you see, through the years, I’ve always
Treated the words as synonyms.”
“Little sun
Peeking through my curtains
You make the shadows on my ceiling dance”
“I watch you grow, through photographs
That your mum sends me, on whatsapp
Oh, I should go home more often”
“I eternalise each moment
With means we made built to last
Oh, I fear the fading memories
But put my trust in fading photographs”